Restart
by chaos-entropy
Summary: One year before the events of Final Fantasy VII, Veld Dragoon noses around the basement of the Nibelheim Manor and finds an old friend. Can he manage to convince him to come back out into the surface world?


Veld had spent barely five minutes in the Nibelheim Manor, and it already seemed deeply, deeply wrong. He generally had no problems wandering around abandoned buildings, and thought people who believed in ghosts were ridiculous, but at the same time he could not ignore the hackles raising on the nape of his neck. The distressing quiet, the way things seemed to _move _out of the corner of your eye no matter how many times you reasoned that it was clearly just a shadow… If there ever was a place more haunted, Veld hadn't ever seen it.

He remembered in the decades past when his colleague Vincent would write letters from his assignment here. Coded letters, but letters all the same. Even a hurried telegram at one point, just before…

The Turk sighed. Had it really been that long? 1976 seemed like only yesterday, only a few years after he Vincent were partnered up as Turks. He was a year older and a year wiser, and had not been pleased to act as the rookie's 'sheepdog'. But after several missions, Veld had gradually developed a warm camaraderie with Vincent. Which made it all the more upsetting when the Turk was reported killed in action, and Veld sworn to secrecy as to the identity of Vincent's murderer.

He let out a deep breath, sweeping his torch around the stairs he was currently descending, his left hand clinging to the bannister. The air smelled damp and dusty, but one could breathe it with little complaint. There were cobwebs everywhere, hanging in thick, net curtains. There were some arachnid-type monsters ahead, undoubtedly, but how they'd gotten into the basement of the Shinra Mansion was a mystery, especially considering how the door was locked and the key left in a safe on the upper levels.

Veld found himself in a large room with a dirt floor. Several _actual _spiders skittered around the corners when he flashed his light at them, and the unease did nothing but increase the further he got away from the nearest exit.

In fact, it was bringing back some very deep-seated memories for the Turk.

He had grown up in a large manor surrounding a vineyard, a jewel in the eyes of any traveller who had endured miles upon miles of flat scrubland to get nearer the Eastern sea. The Dragoon clan owned this beautiful estate through family inheritance, and it boasted some of the most beautiful cliff-top walks merely three miles through the woods surrounding the sides of the house. There was a private beach accessible to the Dragoons as well, and growing up, Veld had been used to visitors from all over the world clamouring for room and board here. Sadly, the vineyard no longer existed and the Dragoon vintage did not decorate the tables of the rich and famous any more, but Veld still looked back on his ancestral home fondly.

However, there had been one room in the house which a young Veld had never, _ever _been allowed into. One annex of the house had a long flight of stairs leading up to guest bedrooms and parlour rooms. The cupboard under this set of stairs led to a cellar.

Previous generations had forgotten about it entirely, and when the house fell into Dragoon Sr.'s hands in the 1940s, he had opened the door to find a seemingly endless staircase, with no electrical lighting. If one felt along the wall, there were no brackets in which to hold candles. Veld's uncle had investigated the room with a paraffin lantern some time later, but it was clear that this basement had been dug very, _very _deep. The stone stairway was crumbling, and when the older Dragoon had found his way down to the bottom, there was nothing except empty wine barrels and stifling cold air. He had warned his nephew against going in here, but the youngster had not listened, eager to explore every nook and cranny of the manor.

Despite the heavy latch on the door, the young Veld had no trouble simply forcing it open when nobody was looking. He was wearing a toy miner's helmet which, if fed two AA batteries, would emit a beam of light. Veld imagined himself as a brave explorer he'd seen in an adventure serial at the movie theatre one night. He was descending into a temple, or a cavernous structure made _thousands of years ago_ by ancient people. He was going to discover new species, evidence of pagan religions, carvings that were hewn into the rock as solemn warnings for the future…

And then Veld's foot slipped on a step too narrow to support his weight.

While he couldn't remember much of the incident, his father had told him that he had screamed all the way down the flight of stairs before eventually hitting the floor and potentially blacking out. His parents were beside themselves as he lay listless in bed for nearly three days. Waking up, he discovered he had a jarred shoulder, a fractured arm and jaw, and a twisted ankle. Summer vacation of 1955 was spent being plagued by nightmares of tumbling, down, down, down into the pit, and his body jolting awake only for him to let out an ear-piercing wail.

Needless to say, Veld did not particularly like the dark after that. As he had grown up, the nightmares of that day in the manor had ceased, but he couldn't help but feel his mind itching, ready to play tricks on him and remind him of that awful, painful day.

As Veld had walked further through the basement, he noticed a room somewhat off to the left. When he caught sight of what was in there, he briefly wondered if there had been some kind of All Hallow's Eve ghost tour down here at one time. Or someone had a sick sense of humour. Or these things were _necessary_.

Coffins were either laid out on the floor, or stood standing up like in those haunted house fairground attractions. One would half expect a skeleton with bulging eyes on springs to pop out.

How many people had _died _because of Professor Hojo's experiments? The original owners of the mansion before Shinra had been lavishly buried in a cemetery several miles away, and they weren't exactly undertakers. Just landlords who owned the majority of the farms worked on by the serfs in the village. The coffins had to have been ordered _en masse_ for such a purpose, right? Even then, why would Hojo go to the trouble of making funeral arrangements for dead specimens? And why had he left such cryptic clues as to unlocking the safe?

Whatever the case, Veld made sure to quickly say a prayer in his head before stepping over the threshold. He hadn't believed in religion for a long time, and his parents seldom took him to church as a child, but faith had been a strong, motivating factor for the past few years of his life. One couldn't tell from his usually emotionless visage, but it had comforted him to at least _try _to believe in something.

One of the coffins — sable in colour, and with a crucifix carved into the top end, lay on a slightly raised platform. Veld noticed a candle stand at one end of it, which had burned out long ago, and gently touched what he thought had been a funeral shroud, only to find it was cobweb.

The room had seemed deathly quiet to the Turk. That was, until he picked up the sound of quiet snoring.

He knelt down, carefully pressing an ear to the top of the coffin. It _was _snoring.

So… Had Hojo sent someone or something down here thinking they were a cadaver, when they were in fact still alive? Several horror movies sprung to mind. Would the creature in the crypt lay eyes on Veld and bellow: "You have disturbed my slumber?" Or look upon him and whisper: "Yes… Fresh meat…" whilst sporting a fanged grin?

Without really thinking, Veld had shoved off the lid of the coffin. If his mind _wasn't _playing tricks on him, he could probably take it out with basic combat skills, a bullet between the eyes, or a blast of Materia.

The coffin's occupant jostled in its sleep. Thankfully, it was human and not a monster. Veld was dreading having to kill some poor mutant, as he had done a few years ago - a Makonoid had escaped from a pod and was tearing its way through the countryside. Its swelled, engorged body, claws and twisted anatomy had brought feelings of disgust and pity to Veld, especially when he had to shoot the whimpering, trapped creature.

Then the experiment opened its eyes.

Veld had known that in the far West, one of the most common eye colours was a warm, reddish brown. Veld had known a few people to have them. However, the red in the occupant's eyes was now much more highly pronounced, and the eyes… _glowed_. Mako infusion, perhaps?

The body rose. Veld's nostrils twitched in disgust at the _smell _of the coffin's occupant — had he not bathed for all these years? Of course not, he berated himself. The likely scenario was that Professor Hojo didn't want anybody to come across evidence of his old experiments. Even so, why had he made a _game _out of it? Was he hoping somebody would find the numbers, open the safe and test the key on every door in the manor until they wound up in this dungeon? It certainly would fit the sick bastard's sense of humour.

The coffin's occupant made a short croaking noise, focusing his eyes away from the light. Veld twisted the end of the torch to dim it. Hopefully this would make this person more comfortable.

"Do forgive me for intruding," the Turk began after a long silence. The undead man in front of him seemed to stare at his companion one moment and turn away the next. "I'm with the Administrative Research Bureau of the Shinra Electric Power Company. Also known as the Turks."

"What… year is it?" As evidenced by the earlier croaking, the voice came out in a guttural rasp. If Veld could get him to come out of the coffin and out of the basement, a drink of water — and then a shower — might be the first things on the agenda.

"It's New Era 006. Do you know how long you've been imprisoned down here?"

"…Thirty years."

Despite the pale man wincing at the ray of light, Veld slowly cast it over him as he tested out a theory in his head. Thirty years ago would have been 1976. His partner had gone missing that year.

_Ah_.

Professor Hojo had never made his dislike for the Turks subtle. Veld had on several occasions acted as a bodyguard to the head of the Science Department, and was made to feel like dirt on the end of a shoe. Hojo's technicians had smiled weakly at him and privately assured him that was just the way the Professor treated everyone. But Veld didn't really think the man had the capacity to… well, somehow overpower a Turk. Shinra's 'wild pack of dogs' were nearly on an equal footing with SOLDIERs in the combat department, so whatever had happened… Hojo had probably gotten very lucky. _Very _lucky.

"Vincent. You're Vincent Valentine."


End file.
